


they shot rainbow '74 on day two

by dearmaggiemay



Series: queen+cordelia [6]
Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018)
Genre: Boys Being Boys, Gen, Mentor/Protégé, Multi, Non-Chronological, aka 'queen adopts the cast', benjamina vs rogerina, i guess they film a movie as well, kinda shippy but that's not the point honestly, that's it that's the whole fic, they all like to cuddle and have no notion of personal space
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-25 16:29:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18578260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dearmaggiemay/pseuds/dearmaggiemay
Summary: But, once again Delia Hughes hadn’t become one of the most important directors and earned her place in the industry back by being complacent.(No, really, she basically did it by turning every single one of her movies into a really profitable fuck you to Hollywood and half of the world. Deborah guessed that was what being in the most successful franchise of the 70s allowed you to do).AKA, the whole cast has a crush on some member of Queen, half of Hollywood fears their director and Deborah is soft as fuck and kinda unsure about how she's supossed to play the role of Delia fucking Hughes.





	they shot rainbow '74 on day two

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer because some people take things too seriously: some of these are just my own personal opinions about the movie as a fan, and how some things could have been done better in a world that obviously isn't our own. I loved the film, but there were some things that could had been handled differently, and I just wanted to write about how my character would have done things if she had been involved in the filming. This is just a fic. In my mind this isn't even about the real people per se, it would be set in the universe of BoRhap, but it's up to interpretation. Period. Enjoy :)

The clock on the wall was ticking. Rami and Gwilym were playing scrabble on a tiny portable set (a hobbie probably acquired by one too many hours of Queen research), Joe was busy with his phone and Brian seemed to be showing Roger a video she couldn’t quite see but was probably about some kind of small, cute and helpless animal. On the other side of the two rockstars, in silence and writing something on a notepad there was the scriptwriter in charge of the script they were supposed to go over that morning.

And Deborah was nervously squirming on her chair, trying to stay calm, when a hand landed on her forearm and snapped her out of it. She gave Ben a small smile and covered his hand with her own. They didn’t know each other that well yet, but the british actor had turned out to be as cuddly and handsy as she was. Physical closeness came easy to them, something necessary anyway, taking into account that they were supposed to play Delia Hughes and Roger Taylor. Deborah had conducted her own investigation on the legendary british director and the huge amount of pictures of her with Roger in which they were cuddling or touching each other in some shape or form (some more innocent than others) was both amusing and heartwarming.

Deborah hadn’t met Delia yet. In fact, she was the last one among the casting to meet the person she was playing, and that didn’t make it any easier. Of course, she had watched all of Delia’s interviews from the late seventies until her last movie in 2015. After that there had been sporadic appearances at several red carpets or Queen concerts and, of course, the 88th Academy Awards which Delia hosted for the first time that same year.

Deborah had watched those awards at least twenty times since she was given the part, trying to figure out how the older woman moved around and gesticulated. There was a part that always amused her, in which Charlize Theron unexpectedly smooched Delia on the lips and the public went wild. Somebody had focused the camera on Delia’s surprised face and then the image had promptly been cut to one of Brian, Roger and Sarina laughing their asses off among the public. It was hilarious, to be honest, but Deborah regretted having sent it to the cast’s group chat because Joe had turned it into a meme.

“This feels like the old days, watching you two cuddle all over the place.” 

Brian’s voice startled her. Deborah blushed a bit when everybody’s eyes fell on them (at some point Ben had just dropped his head on her shoulder while he scrolled through his dog’s instagram, and he gave them all a sassy smile) but Roger was quick to divert the focus of the room.

“As if we were the only ones. I recall that you joined a couple of times….” He winked at Brian. “I really hope that at least the aftermath gets in the movie, if not the reason behind it.”

“You can’t be serious.” Wide-eyed, Brian looked at his friend in surprise before pleading. “Come on, Rog, it’s been almost fifty years and Elton still makes sure to remind me of it every single time we see him.”

“As he should! You locked yourself in the bathroom to have the freak out of the century while he was in the tub!”

What…? How came that Deborah had never read anything about Elton and a tub? She looked around but her friends were as lost as she was. Not even Gwilym, who played Brian himself, seemed to have a clue.

“Do we really need to go over this again? I told you, I didn’t know he was in that tub!”

A foot gently nudged Delia’s under the table and she locked eyes with Rami for a second. _“Is he blushing?”_ he mouthed. Deborah looked at Brian and had to hold back a giggle after realizing that the guitarist was indeed blushing.

“May I ask…”

Brian made Roger laugh just by pinching the bridge of his nose. “You really don’t want to know, Gwilym, trust me on this.”

“Guys, I really must send you this twitter thread. It’s called ‘My five favourite human disasters cuddling: a thread’...”

Before Joe could show them another twitter thread about the band, the door of the room opened so hard that it hit the wall and startled them all. Deborah gulped, watching the infamous Cordelia Hughes storm into the room like she commanded the whole place. Which she did, in a way.

She was quite the sight. At sixty-five, Delia still wore Dr. Marten boots and clothes that had probably belonged to the band at some point. She still favoured dark eyeshadow, while her mostly grey hair would have still reached her waist if it hadn’t been up in a bun held by a flowery ornament. _Tachibana,_  Deborah’s brain reminded her. A type of _kanzashi_ , or traditional Japanese hair ornaments. Deborah had read in Delia’s biography that she had been given some as a gift back in Queen’s first tour in Japan, and promptly turned them into one of her trademark accessories along with dangling earrings and Freddie’s old glam bracelets.

Delia had also accidentally made them fashionable in the western world, and then called everyone on their bullshit when Asian people were discriminated but their clothing and food were enjoyed and sometimes stolen away from them and passed as just another new trend. That had been a risky move back in the 80’s, even riskier once Delia had fallen in disgrace in Hollywood’s eyes but, once again Delia Hughes hadn’t become one of the most important directors and earned her place in the industry back by being complacent.

(No, really, she basically did it by turning every single one of her movies into a really profitable _fuck you_ to Hollywood and half of the world. Deborah guessed that was what being in the most successful franchise of the 70s allowed you to do).

Judging by the stories she had read, Deborah had been curious about Delia’s temper. It was said to be on par with Roger’s, who was known to have thrown a couple of televisions out of the window back in the day. However, as she watched the director give the scriptwriter a murderous glance, Deborah wished to be waiting outside rather than to have a seat on the first row.

“Okay, who the hell wrote this?” Delia asked, holding up in her hand what looked like the script for the film. It had to be a rhetorical question, as the guy who wrote it (McArthur, McElroy, McSomething, Deborah couldn’t remember) was sitting right in front of her.

“I did?” he said. It sounded more like a question than an answer. Deborah winced when she saw the anger in Delia’s bright eyes.

“And how many times did we ask you to rewrite it so the film would tell something remotely similar to what actually happened?”

“I believe…”

Delia slapped the script on the table and interrupted him. “Five. We asked you to rewrite it five times. This… This is complete bullshit!” she exclaimed. The indignation made her voice higher. “You somehow had the guts to turn some of the most important life experiences for Freddie into something evil and dirty, I mean… Where is David Minns? Phoebe? Joe? The New York sisters?” she asked. The scriptwriter just shrugged, which wasn’t a very wise move in Deborah’s opinion.

“We talked about this when you guys asked for more screen time for Jim. We can’t fit twenty years of his life in a movie, Hughes.”

“But apparently we can spend half of our movie vilifying the gay community and like five whole minutes turning lights on and off.” Delia raised an eyebrow. “By the way, just don’t… Don’t get me started on Mary. I can’t believe how you fucked this up so badly. Brian definitely wasn’t a saint, neither of us was!” Deborah sneaked a glance at Brian, who looked like the impersonation of ‘Told you so’. “Roger is so much more than a hot piece of ass! And the way you treated self-harm? Disgusting.” Delia spat the words and the whole cast looked at each other in disbelief. How badly had that guy fucked it up? “I should have known that Hollywood would try to romanticize it. And the whole _‘For the life of me… Nothing comes to mind’_ How can you have depicted their friendship so wrong?”

“I…”

“You are lucky Freddie hasn’t read this script, because he would have slapped you with it!” Delia hissed, pushing the script and making it slide over the table until it softly hit the scriptwriter on the chest. “You know nothing about Queen, you definitely know nothing about me and you are completely unfit to work in our movie. Get out. Now.”

At that point, the scriptwriter’s face was so red it was turning purple. “You can’t do that,” he claimed. Delia’s smile dripped poison.

“You’ll find that I’m actually the biggest producer of BoRhap, so I think that I can actually do that. Get out, now,” she hissed. The scriptwriter gave her a murderous look and took the script, standing out from the chair and making his way to the door.

“Bryan will hear of this,” he threatened.

“I sure hope he does, I need to have a few words with him as well!” Delia exclaimed, after which the scriptwriter closed the door just as harshly as it had been opened in the first place. Deborah watched Delia sit on the edge of the table and breathe in and out a couple of times.

“Careful with your heart, Del,” Brian whispered, not low enough that Deborah couldn’t hear it. Delia gave him a loving smile and gently pulled at a grey curl.

“Always so mindful.” She blew him a kiss, turning around to face the cast. For a second Deborah had a hard time wrapping her mind around the sight of one of the most important directors in the cinema industry just casually cross-sitting on a table. “Sorry about this, guys, but he gave me no option. He was under the assumption that if he avoided my calls and forced the first table read to go on, I would try to avoid making a scene.”

“Delia Hughes trying not to make a scene?” Roger laughed. “Alright, he definitely didn’t know shit about you.”

Delia rolled her eyes. “In an early script, Chrissie and I got in a cat fight. Enough said.”

Both Brian and Roger grimaced.

“I think I’m in love,” Deborah heard Joe saying at the same time. She smiled seeing Rami playfully smacking him. Brian seemed to have seen it as well, because he smiled at both actors before looking back at Delia and crossing his arms over his chest.

“So, Del, what’s the plan now?”

Delia sighed and turned around a bit, facing her two friends. It made Deborah smile. The sigh in front of them wasn’t different from the many pictures of Delia hanging around the band decades ago.

“I’ll make a few calls and get in charge of the script, it’s nothing I haven’t done before. I won’t allow this movie to…” Delia bit her lower lip for a second. “Look, I know we can’t obviously tell everything but I won’t stand by a movie full of lies. Whatever we tell, we tell it as it was.”

“So you want to rewrite the full script,” Roger stated. Delia winked at him.

“Bold of you to assume I haven’t already. Give me a minute, please. Guys, I’m really sorry about this but I need a minute, alright?” she asked the cast. The apology was plain on her face and everybody nodded, which made Delia smile while she grabbed Brian’s phone and dialled a number. “Oscar, honey?” she said after a few seconds. Deborah hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, but the name of Delia’s brother caught her attention. “I need you to get Casting ready again. I’ll text you the details… David Minns, Joe, Phoebe, Sheffield, Reid, the New York sisters. Maybe Michael as well, if I can arrange it.” Delia’s face turned into stone for a second and Deborah could swear those were tears in her eyes. “Maybe. I don't know. I’ll… I’ll talk to Iman about it, but it’s too early. Far too early. Fuck.” Deborah had to look away when Delia awkwardly cleared her throat. “Also, I... I heard something about Elton’s biopic starring this young man from Kingsman, so we might want to look into that as well. We also need to talk to Aaron and the girls playing the wives, I think they are getting more screen time. You got it?… Alright, I’ll be there. Bye, love you too.”

Delia hung up and leaned to tell something to her friends, while Deborah was hit by the understanding of why many people said that she was terrifying. Delia had disliked the script and therefore taken command of one of the film’s most important parts in just a few minutes… And Deborah was supposed to play her in her youth, when she had basically bitchslapped Mick fucking Jagger. Who in their right mind had decided that Deborah was the right actress for it? Oh, God… Now she understood poor Rami, who had been chosen based on his work on Mr. Robot. Deborah had watched it. It was really good, but his character was the complete opposite of Freddie Mercury, which had made him a bit insecure. That was how she felt in those moments. She was the complete opposite of Delia Hughes, how the hell was she supposed to pull it off…?

“Oh, darling, this is completely unfair. You are so much prettier than me back in the day, people are going to say the film isn’t being accurate.”

Deborah had been so lost in her thoughts that she had completely missed her castmates standing out to follow Brian and Roger out of the room and Delia sitting on the table next to her. The actress gulped, acutely aware of the fact that she probably looked like a deer in front of the headlights. She couldn’t help but feel that dying her hair a darker red even before filming and wearing jewellery similar to Delia’s had been a mistake. She had to look too eager for the job, almost like a child, but Delia just gave her a warm smile. She jumped from the table with the grace of a woman in her twenties and made Deborah stand up with a gesture, promptly locking their arms. “Walk with me, darling, will you?”

They caught up with the others in a few seconds, mostly because Roger was showing everybody some unseen pictures of Queen (mostly a drunk Brian, from what Deborah could see) in the middle of the hall.

“Alright, guys, listen up please!” Delia exclaimed. Deborah had to hold back a giggle when she saw Joe’s starstruck look. Somebody was crushing hard on somebody else, it seemed. “The table read will be postponed for a few days, probably just two or three while I shout at people on the phone and give the last touches to the script. If you want, we can bypass the whole email and manager thing and just talk by whatsapp to make it easier. My number must be somewhere in the paperwork so you are more than welcome to add me to a chat group or whatever.”

“Or,” Brian sighed. “I can give you my number instead, because Delia can’t go a day without losing her phone.”

“Says the one who _always_ loses his coat.”

“Says the one who _always_ steals my coat.”

“Guys…” Roger sounded tired. Deborah guessed she would also get a bit tired of her friends bantering for over fifty years. Delia, however, didn’t look ashamed in the slightest.

“Anyway, you are free for the next few days, although I’d advise you to stick to Queen. You know, the most you are around them the better for the movie, yadda yadda. Rami, honey, I’ll talk to Freddie and Jim so you and Joe can meet them at Deaky’s instead of Garden Lodge. Nobody wants you anywhere near those cats again, you poor thing, why didn’t you told us you were allergic?” she asked, exasperated. It sounded like she had asked that quite a lot of times. Deborah had heard it before, how Rami’s first meeting with Freddie had ended up with Delia’s daughter driving him to the doctor. Poor Rami just shrugged.

“I… I hadn’t been expecting that many cats, honestly.”

Roger smirked. “Said Jim in 1986.”

“Are we going to have the cats in the film?” Gwilym suddenly asked, blushing a bit when all his castmates looked at him at the same time. “What? Just wondering.”

Delia smiled and shook her head. “Do you think he would put his name on a movie without cats? Of course there are going to be cats.” Her smile got wider at Gwilym’s little excited ‘ _Yes!_ ’. “We’ll have to work around poor Rami, but that’s a talk for another day. Now, off with you. You have two days to basically stalk Queen before the script is ready and we go back to the States, so take advantage of them.”

Deborah smiled, watching Ben’s happiness when Roger announced he was taking him to practice drumming. Rami and Joe both gave her a friendly pat on the shoulder as they left, even though both were a bit shorter than Deborah so it was a bit awkward. Brian leant to whisper something in Delia’s ear before leaving with a pretty excited Gwylim at his heels and suddenly both women were alone -and Deborah’s nervousness was back.

Delia either didn’t notice or pretended not to notice, because she just smiled and gave Deborah’s hand a gentle squeeze. “I’m really glad we’ve finally met, honey, although I expected a more relaxed thing that the disaster back there.”

“It’s… It’s alright, honestly. It… It was kinda awesome, you know, the way you basically chew and spit him out,” Deborah said before she could stop herself. Delia, however, seemed to take it as a compliment. Which it was, in a certain way. She offered Deborah her arm once again and both started to walk somewhere, lead by the director.

“So,” she said. “As you’ve heard, I’m going to be quite busy in the following days but I can afford to take the afternoon and evening off today.” Delia grimaced for a second. “Well, actually I can’t, but I’ll deal with Oscar later. Advantages of your brother being your PA, you know. Tell me, how much do you know about me?”

Deborah frowned, trying to remember everything. “Well I… I’ve read your biography, obviously, and Jim’s, Phoebe’s, Joe’s and Veronica’s as well. I’ve also watched every interview I could find…”

“What do you think about my interview in 1987? You know the one.”

Of course Deborah knew. She would have known even if she wasn’t going to play Delia, everybody and their mothers knew about Delia Hughes’ interview back in 1987. While other people had been forced to focus their narrative on the heterosexual people affected by HIV, nobody had been able to stop Delia from going on live TV and spitting out how politics everywhere were allowing LGBT people specifically to die by choosing not to fund research for a cure, turning the epidemic into a joke or actively trying to silence it.

(And then somebody had tried to trick her into talking about Freddie, and Delia had verbally smacked them down, calling them ‘biased, heartless bastards with the compassion range of a cockroach’ before storming out. The BBC hadn’t been happy.)

Deborah could have said many things about that interview. However, if she had any idea of who Delia was, none of those things -which had been hotly debated at one point or another- were the answer wanted.

“Well, I think it’s a bit impressive that you managed not to punch the interviewers right then and there, even more when they started talking shit about Freddie. Also, your crush on Diana was a bit obvious.”

Delia stared at her for a few seconds during which Deborah thought she had screwed up -and then the director laughed. “Alright, you got me there. Nice one. You can start working on my character from there. Basically, I’d kill anybody who messes with Freddie, homophobes drive me up the wall and I’m too into girls for my own good. Let’s start from there, shall we? Listen, have you seen London?”

The unexpected question surprised Deborah. “Huh, not really…? Rami, Joe and I flew here last week and since then everything has been meetings and cast bonding, so…”

“Okay, it’s settled. I’m taking you out for lunch and we’ll talk about…” Delia shrugged as she tried to find something in the pockets of her jacket. Deborah was pretty sure that a younger Brian had worn that same jacket at some point. “Well, anything you need to know to be me. How does it sound?”

“Wonderful.”

Delia’s warm smile at her words made Deborah all giddy inside, but in a good way. It wasn’t something she hadn’t already seen as her friends had been the whole week all basically crushing over some Queen member, although feeling it herself was quite a different matter.

“Alright, I really hope somebody has an extra helmet… At least you are wearing jeans instead of a skirt.”

Those words startled Deborah. “Wait, do you actually still…?”

“Ride my motorbike?” Delia raised an eyebrow, smiling. From her hand dangled the rescued keys of a motorbike and a keychain of a little cat. “Oh, honey, did you even expect otherwise?”


End file.
